Biography

October 22, 1921 · New York, USA

December 31, 2010 · New York, New York, USA

Phyllis Kenner

She graduated with a Bachelor's Degree of Arts from Barnard College in 1942 in New York City with a major in sociology. During World War II, she was a statistician for the federal Public Housing Authority.

She is survived by her daughter, Nancy Thompson (born in 1962) of Denver, Colorado.

She was the top copywriter and advertiser for the Doyle Dane Bernbach Agency on Madison Avenue in New York City where they made history in assigning copywriters like her and art directors like Bob Gage to work together on campaigns such as Orbach's department stores, Polaroid instant cameras, and Levy Breads.

After World War II, she first worked at an ad agency in 1946 at Bresnick & Solomont in Boston, Massachusetts. She joined Grey Advertising in 1947. She was hired by Doyle Dane Bernbach Agency on Madison Avenue in New York City in 1949 and remained until 1962 where she was copy chief. She was the copy chief for the agency's first 13 years and a mentor to copywriters like Paula Green, Julian Koenig, Mary Wells Lawrence, and George Lois. Since her daughter's birth in 1962, she worked three days a week until retirement in 1982 to start a consulting company of her own.

On the Polaroid instant camera campaign: It was great fun to work on very challenging, with all sorts of new products.

On working with Laurence Olivier in the Polaroid camera campaign: Olivier was a dear...And I thought: 'God, strike me dead. It's not going to get better than this.

Advertising before Doyle Dale Bernbach: Pre-DDB...advertising was artificial sleepy, and sometimes pretentious and schmaltzy.